


Brand New

by killjoylincoln



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 18,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21317791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killjoylincoln/pseuds/killjoylincoln
Summary: “You know me,” he said. I nodded. “Did I know you?”“Yes,” I whispered.I didn’t know what he would do next, if he would hurt me or run where I couldn’t follow. Instead he grabbed me by my coat and pulled me into a hug, overpowering me with every memory of him I’d been trying so hard not to think about.With gentle hands, I pushed him away.“No,” I said. “Not like that.”Or, Harry Potter loses his memory and runs away from the years of his life he can't remember. Of all the places he could have chosen, he finds himself in the one place Draco Malfoy has exiled himself to.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 284





	1. Chapter One

Before that summer, the only one I can look back on fondly like a warm memory simmering in the sun, I had not paused long on what the legacy of my family would mean.

Our line was long; our line was old; as old as even our African ancestors where magic and indeed all life flowed. Our blood was rich, strong, and above all it was pure. We had never strayed, never stumbled. Decades, centuries- we were

clean.

My childhood teachings begun early and not of lessons or studies. Our surname, our presence in the magical community, meant everything and nothing, not fear, not love, not temptation, would ever win in what was, all encompassing, a sovereignty.

At four years, I was told the difference between a halfblood and a mudblood. Halfbloods had grown too numerous to not encounter and I was permitted to fraternize and tolerate them if I was always sure of my birthright above them.

Mudbloods were to be openly distained as they were nothing but magical leeches, a side effect or even a plague of what blood mixing had done.

At such an age, beliefs such as those were not my own, could not be my own, for children have no autonomy and no freedom for independent thought. I grew tall and mean, drugged by the racism and intolerance of my parents and I

loved it.

It gave me an edge, a power I could wield over those below me. But as power complexes suggest, there will always be someone who holds more of it than you do, something which my father figured out much too late.

These three years he has been in prison have been the happiest of my life. I feel lighter, more free. I feel as if I can breathe on my own and the air is so much sweeter than it ever was before. Losing mother mere weeks after losing my wand was harder than the loss of the man who had warped me into the monster I had been.

I am no longer him. We share the same face, the same hands. We bear the same ink and rippling scars but he is not me and I am not him.

That summer, at the edge of the ocean, at the edge of the world, I had become the invisible ghost.


	2. Chapter Two

It took months of practice to stop looking over my shoulder, expecting the elderly muggle in the queue at Tesco to pull a wand on me. Every long trench coat turned into a cloak in my mind and even the smallest bird became an owl sent to deliver more terrible news I didn’t want to hear.

It became easier after the first year. I took a position at the local newspaper, combing articles for grammatical errors and writing the occasional piece or two if they were under quota.

I never quite made friends though I wasn’t disliked. I didn’t participate in town events or join in on Thursdays when the newspaper ladies frequented The National for a round of pints. I played my part and sooner than I could have imagined my three-year anniversary in Kettering came and went without pageantry.

I’d chosen the sleepy hamlet for my self-inflicted exile for both the view and the people. The town lay on the crest of the ocean, the air wild and fresh with sea water. There were white, rocky cliffs to the west that were arduous to hike but offered without doubt the highest and finest view of the wide sea. The houses were painted brightly, my own cottage a robin’s egg blue, and no one locked their doors at night. To me, it was an oasis in a cruel world, a paradise unblemished by the poison of all that lay outside its limits. Kettering lived and breathed as it always had and not my arrival, nor his, would ever change that.

Despite my minimal relationship with the townsfolk, their wizard population was a grand total of two and neither of them were younger than seventy.

It was a beautiful corner of the world, of that I am positive, but even more so I knew that I would have died there had he never showed up.


	3. Chapter Three

Although stripped of magic, the deed to the manor, and my entire inheritance, I was not altogether cut off from the magical world. I was permitted to meet with friends, receive The Prophet- even live in London if I so desired.

It was me who denied myself all links I’d previously had to the world I’d known. It was not masochism, at least I didn’t believe so. No, I fear it was something much worse that drove me away from everything I once loved. It was the memories. The war, the pain, the unbearable loss of life.

The uncertain eyes of the ones I once called friends.

My father, whispering to himself in his cell as the darkness slowly drove him mad.

My mother, the master potion-maker. The Draught of Living Death had never held my attention in class until my mother had swallowed enough to put every Londoner to sleep, leaving her only son to find her cold, hard body.

That is why I left.

On most days, I was okay. On most days, I could forget but after three years that nostalgia begins to creep in like toxic gas and suddenly you’re in the town square drinking coffee and thinking about the woman you once had memorized and how now you can’t even remember the colour of her eyes.

It was then, with thoughts of childish memories occupying my head, that I saw a boy who looked uncannily like Harry Potter.

I sat up straighter from my seat on the edge of the fountain, all dark thoughts having evaporated instantly, and tried to glimpse him again. I observed him only once more in the gap between the scratch bakery and the bank but he disappeared before I could be sure of what I’d seen.

Same messy hair, same uncoordinated gait, same stupid round glasses. In appearance alone I was sure it was him but here, in Kettering, where I have finally found some semblance of peace? The world was surely far too large.

At work, I was in a daze- off kilter and deeply bothered by the re-emergence of a man I never expected to see again. Twice the sports and leisure columnist asked if I was alright. I told her I was and I believe I was telling the truth. She kindly delivered me a cup of tea and I thanked her and didn’t speak to her or any of the other ladies for the rest of the afternoon.

For two long days, I thought of nothing but him. At first I thought of our juvenile boyhood rivalry- the duel we never got to have in first year and all the Quidditch matches we played against each other. After the first day, however, more and more I began to think of Fiendfyre biting at our heels and the cold panic in my heart as I gripped him tight; the glassy fear in his eyes as I bled out onto the floor of that godforsaken bathroom, believing his face would be the last one I’d ever see; or, how I’d lied for him at the manor and never got a chance to tell him why.

Two more days and I’d forgotten about him completely until, on my way home from the cinema, the man in front of me dropped his newspaper.

“Sir,” I said, picking it up and touching his shoulder. “Sir, your newspaper.”

The man turned. It was him, I was sure. Harry Potter smiled brightly at me.

“Thank you,” he said. He took the newspaper from me and turned away like he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him.

I remained locked in place as if hexed with a leg-locker curse. The saviour of the wizarding world turned onto Scott Street, whistling a tune, and my idiot brain could only think of my article on the summer planting list inside the newspaper he was holding.

It was absurd, a prank surely. There was no believable reason that Harry Potter would have found himself here, in this tiny village, and certainly no logical reason for him not to acknowledge his childhood tormentor.

After only a moments delay, I followed him. He crossed the streets unsurely, matching the timeline that he’d only arrived recently and didn’t quite know his way around yet. A five-minute walk from the town center, he stopped at a small bed and breakfast and entered, only after pausing to smell the roses adorning the doorway.

A prank, I firmly decided.

It must be.


	4. Chapter Four

I glimpsed him a handful of times over the next fortnight. He was always alone, always appearing warm and inviting save for the smile which never quite reached his eyes. To put it simply, he looked sad. Here, in Kettering, no one else would ever notice for how could they?

They didn’t know him like I did.

On a Friday afternoon, nearly one month since his arrival, I found my attention and my work utterly unsalvageable. My piece on the abandoned pirate cove was empty and directionless and my bin was already overflowing with abandoned drafts. At half four, the editor-in-chief stopped by my desk.

“Pints, Draco?” she said pleasantly. “Mary’s birthday. Be sure to say she looks fifty-five, she’s a bit touchy about turning sixty.”

I stared at her, my brain about a thousand miles away. She blinked, expectant. I came to my senses.

“Yes!” I nearly shouted, then again more normally. “Yes, sorry. I’ll meet you there? I have something I have to do first.”

I stood, sweeping all my things into my arms and kissing Edith on her cheek, politely pretending not to notice her blushing.

I left the news building and made the short walk to Amber Cottage where Mr Cripley lived on the beach. He answered the door after only my first knock, his wand pointed steadily at my throat as per all our other meetings.

“Hello, Mr Cripley,” I said evenly in the voice I always kept reserved for Ministry functions.

“Master Malfoy,” the old man grunted.

I stared at him, waiting. Finally, he grunted once more and moved to the side to let me enter which I did so a bit smugly.

“Tea?” he said.

“Please.”

I settled myself into the living room I’d seen many times over the course of the last three years. Before Mr and Mrs Cripley would greet me at the door but that was two years ago and now Mrs Cripley can only wave at me from a photo above the fireplace and Mr Cripley doesn’t smile anymore.

“I suppose you’re here about the Potter boy,” Mr Cripley said when he joined me. A tray of tea and biscuits hovered above his wand and under his arms were half a dozen Daily Prophet issues.

“Yes,” I answered, accepting the tea and the newspapers he dropped unceremoniously onto my lap.

I knew better than to wait for him to answer me so I sipped my tea and opened the first paper. It was dated nearly ten months ago. Potter’s face was splashed across the front page with an alarming headline in thick ink.

HERO CRITICALLY INJURED IN

DARK WIZARD BRAWL

The article itself was useless nonsense as clearly no information had been released as per auror protocol and The Prophet was simply grasping at quills. The piece was purely speculation but it made it appear as if Potter had been bludgeoned and maimed and that healers were having trouble putting him back together again.

The next few papers were equally as redundant but the penultimate one, dated just four months ago, hinted that it was not physical injuries that ailed the saviour but mental ones. The final paper had a school photo of Potter. He looked about sixteen. The caption under the photo read:

_Harry Potter, aged 20, has not been seen in public since_

_rogue dark wizards addled his memories._

I thought of his smile and the way he’d casually thanked me like I was a stranger.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Language,” old Mr Cripley growled.


	5. Chapter Five

By the town’s standards, the pub was full when I arrived. The twenty-odd patrons greeted me by my first name and I shook hands with several of the men. To them I was just another lost youth.

To them the skull and snake on my arm was just that.

The ladies were at their usual booth in the back corner near the jukebox. They were excited by my arrival though I expected it had more to do with the wine they’d drunk than with my company.

“Edith,” I greeted automatically. “Peggy. Mary, happy fiftieth, love.”

I kissed her hand. She giggled, flushing red.

Peggy signalled for Jack the surly bartender who ambled over and glared at all of us in turn.

“Another round, on me,” I said, “and a glass of Champagne for Mary, something expensive. And I will have a whiskey sour, a double, please, and two shots of Firewhisky.” Jack blinked at me. “Er, sorry. Fireball. Two shots of Fireball.”

Jack left. The others didn’t notice.

“Did you see his arse?” Peggy whispered conspiratorially. The others broke into a fit of giggles. I snorted and looked away, beaming.

The night progressed exactly as I thought it would. It was pleasant, the most enjoyable night I’d had in a while. My companions were used to my bouts of silence and were more than happy to fill the gaps. The drinks were finally beginning to loosen me up when Peggy glanced at the bar and grinned wolfishly.

“Look,” she attempted to whisper but was much too drunk to achieve anything less than a shout. “It’s the new boy!”

“The messy looking one?” That was Edith.

“Henry,” Peggy offered.

“Harry,” I said flatly.

Their heads swivelled in unison to look at me.

“You _know_ him?” Peggy said dramatically.

I stood, downing my drink in one swallow. “No.”

Feeling courageous, emboldened by drink, I approached the bar.

Harry was holding a beer, the bottle cold and perspiring against his hand. His eyes were far away but he had a small, content smile on his face and he looked right at home in a bar he never should have had the opportunity to visit.

I ordered two more whiskey sours from Jack. When they arrived, Harry looked over and said, “What are those?”

My heart was beating wildly in my chest. I hadn’t heard his voice in three years. I told him what it was and he quirked an eyebrow underneath his messy fringe.

“Sounds dreadful, mate.”

Unable to stop myself, I held out one of the glasses. “Would you like to try it?”

Whether possessing a blind sense of trust in strangers or perhaps was a bit drunker than I’d originally guessed, he accepted.

While he drank, I was allowed to stare at him.

His hair was longer than I remembered, his fringe almost reaching his glasses and brushing the neck of his t-shirt. His scar was bright tonight though maybe that was just because I was looking for it. There was a hole in his ear as if he’d once had an earring but a thin scar that ran below it suggested he’d stopped wearing it after it had been ripped out.

“Not bad,” Harry Potter said, grinning widely. He offered the glass back to me. I picked up the other one.

“You finish that one,” I said, tapping my glass to his.

“Cheers,” he said.

Suddenly desperate for him not to leave, I tried to sound casual when I said, “What brings you to town?”

His face fell though only slightly. Choosing his words careful, Harry said, “A vacation of sorts. I had an accident at work. I chose to leave to give myself a chance to heal.”

I was clenching my glass in a grip far too strong. “I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds very scary.”

Harry looked strongly into my eyes, the first time he’d ever done that. “It wasn’t at the time. It was everyone’s looks and their knowing eyes in the months that followed that I hated.”

“Why did you come here? Why did you come to Kettering?”

Harry smiled like he had a secret joke. “Anonymity,” he said simply, “and the people.”

In an instant, I was sure that the reason he had chosen this town was the same as mine. We were both running and the end of the path had led us here.

At the same time as Harry, we both realized we’d missed a step.

“I’m Harry,” he said, offering me his hand for the first time like I’d done all those years ago in the entrance hall. “Harry Potter.”

“Draco,” I said. His hand was the warm antithesis to my cold one. “Would you like to join me and my coworkers? It’s Mary’s sixtieth birthday so make sure to tell her she looks fifty.”

Harry accepted graciously and followed me back to the table. He introduced himself to the ladies and shook everyone’s hands, repeating their names and exuding a charm I never knew he possessed. He congratulated Mary on her fortieth birthday who guffawed loudly and pulled him down into the seat next to her. I dragged over an extra chair while Edith sent me meaningful looks I pretended not to understand.

The women steered the conversation full steam at Harry who answered every question generously. I listened eagerly for insight into his life but his answers were carefully thought out and although they appeased the ladies, I was left desperately curious.

The night finished at the twenty-four-hour fish and chip shop a block away from the news office where Peggy spoke at length, mouth full of chips, of our work there. She tried to convince Harry to write a piece on something, anything, but Harry laughed and said, “I’m not much of a writer. I’m not very interesting.”

The others protested while I looked away so he wouldn’t see my face twisting into a smile. Eventually the others left, Mary and Edith frog marching a very loud Peggy home, and then it was just the two of us.

“Well, I’m going this way,” Harry said, half turning back the way we’d come.

“I’m the opposite,” I said softly, suddenly afraid that all of this wasn’t real and that the moment he turned the corner he would disappear forever.

“Do you live on the beach?”

I nodded. He looked up at the night sky and let out a breath.

“It’s nice here,” he said, seemingly to himself. Then, to me, “See you around, Draco. It was nice meeting you. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

“Goodnight, Harry,” was all I could bring myself to say.

He left. I watched him go until the darkness swallowed him up and I was alone once more.

I walked home slowly, thinking fondly on the night. It was only when I was at home, tucked into bed, did I realize that if Harry didn’t know me then he didn’t know that I was a wizard.

To him, I was nothing more than a muggle. To me, Harry Potter was a thorn ten years in my side that I may finally have the chance to rip out.


	6. Chapter Six

Father always said that a man should live a life with no regrets for one cannot and should not regret anything he once wanted. I suppose now, after everything is said and done, he might look back on what he once believed differently.

In some strange way, there was truth in what he said. I have no regrets for the things I once wanted even if I don’t want them anymore. I do not regret kissing Pansy Parkinson for the first time at the Yule Ball even if our relationship never had any hope. I do not regret sleeping with Astoria Greengrass in her father’s office at the ministry, no matter how weird and wonderful it was or how quickly it finished. I wanted that and I wanted her, and even though I did not love her, I cared deeply about the time we spent together.

No regrets. Never.

Except.

Except regrets are rich when it concerns something you don’t want.

I never wanted the mark. I never wanted to be cannon fodder in the Dark Lord’s war or hold Albus Dumbledore’s fate in my too young hands.

I never wanted to leave school for it was the only place I felt safe, the only place I had real friends where my father couldn’t hurt me.

I regret running from the battle when I should have sided with Potter. I should have fought and died in that war; my corpse among the many. My final stand, the only apology that would ever be worth anything.

But I didn’t. I lived. I lived so that I could run away to a place where Malfoy is nothing more than a last name and no one knows your father is dying in prison or that your mother had already found her own way out.

Here, in Kettering, I have no regrets.

Here, in Kettering, Harry Potter is buying me tea.

“You don’t have to,” I tried to protest in vain. Harry ignored me and stuffed sugar packets into my coat pocket.

“Just shut up and drink, please.”

“Yessir.”

I exited the coffee shop, Harry behind me going off on unreliable weathermen as a light rain spotted his glasses.

A week had passed since Mary’s birthday, a week of not quite lies and not quite truths. I’d run into him at the grocery store and once more outside the library where I was getting novels and he was getting CDs. We never spoke long but it was always pleasant, always easy. He asked about the newspaper and what I was writing. He told me about the place he was staying at and the strange man in the room beside him with a pet ferret and I didn’t tell him why I found that so funny.

Still, I didn’t tell him who I was.

It wasn’t for lack of want that kept my mouth shut. I wanted to tell him but every time I got close I froze up thinking of bodies in bathrooms and my own mother checking for his pulse on the hard floor of the forest.

So, I never said anything and lived in a state of constant worry that a time would come when it would be too late.

“Have a good time at work today,” Harry said to me as we were set to part. “See you at the concert tonight?”

“Just because I have to be there doesn’t mean you have to,” I said, lying through my teeth, desperately hoping he would come.

“It’s not like my diary is very full. See you at seven.”

He waved, I waved, and once again I was struck by the insanity of the mess I’d found myself in.

I arrived at the church at half six that night, pen and paper in hand. The pastor was excited by the prospect of the church choir being featured in the newspaper and didn’t stop to ask if I was catholic or not when he told me which bible verses I should include.

I took a spot near the back, saving a space beside me but not so obviously in case he didn’t show. The concert started promptly at seven and I was still alone. By quarter after I knew he wouldn’t come. I took notes methodically, noting as much detail of the church as I could for it was doubtless the most beautiful building in town.

I must have been more focused than I believed because one moment I was by myself and the next it seemed he was beside me, open hymn book in his hands but not singing. Candlelight flickered off his glasses.

“How’s the article going?” he asked, leaning over to whisper in my ear.

“I’ve already used the word _ethereal_ three times already,” I said just as quietly. I could smell his shampoo.

We listened to the rest of the songs in silence. Lightning flashed outside the windows while thunder boomed overhead. I wasn’t trying to be funny when I described the atmosphere in my writings as ‘magical’.

When it had ended, a few locals wandered over, all of us trading praise for the music. I recognized most of them, from the florist to the owner of the bed and breakfast Harry was staying at. Despite his arrival still being fresh, Harry was loved. His eyes were bright as he described his walks around town and how well everyone had received him. Here was a man who’d given everything to this world and asked for nothing in return.

As quick as lightning, I realized this was the last place I deserved to be.

I tried to sneak away as silently as Harry had arrived but I was not as good at it.

“Mr Malfoy!” the pharmacist called whose own name I could not remember. At the sound of my last name, Harry look over curiously.

“How goes the paper?” the man went on, clapping an enormous hand onto my shoulder. “Keeping you busy?”

I brandished my notepad. “Always working hard, sir.”

“What is it you do, lad? Sports? Leisure?”

“Bit of everything really,” I answered. “Whatever Edith needs.”

He snapped his fingers. “The planting list! That one was you, innit? My wife has it tagged to our fridge.”

“I’m flattered,” I said, though I was truly closer to embarrassed.

“You have a garden at your cottage?”

I thought of my small home on the beach that I both loved and hated. I wanted this conversation to be over.

“Yes,” I said, voice catching in my throat. “Though I’m having trouble with it. I can’t seem to stop the Venomous Tentacula from eating everything. Excuse me.”

I turned away from him and made for the exit.

Harry was gaping at me.

I’d forgotten it was raining until I stepped out into the downpour. I was soaked within seconds, miserable and ashamed.

He didn’t delay. He came racing down the front steps of the church, rain soaking his hair and dripping down his glasses.

“You,” he said. “Are you a Squib?”

“No,” I said, defeated.

“Are you a wizard?”

“I was.”

He came closer, stopping right in front of me. He pushed his wet fringe out of his eyes.

“You know me,” he said. I nodded. “Did I know you?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

I didn’t know what he would do next, if he would hurt me or run where I couldn’t follow. Instead he grabbed me by my coat and pulled me into a hug, overpowering me with every memory of him I’d been trying so hard not to think about.

With gentle hands, I pushed him away.

“No,” I said. “Not like that.”

“Oh,” he said softly. His hands fell limply to his sides. “I’m sorry.”

A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning reminded me of where we were.

“Let’s not do this here,” I said. “Come to mine. I’ll… I’ll tell you everything.”


	7. Chapter Seven

“I’ll get you a towel,” I said quietly, shaking my wet hair out of my eyes and throwing my coat in the vague direction of the rack. “Shall I make coffee?”

Harry didn’t answer. I put a pot on anyway and fetched towels from the loft. When I arrived back downstairs, Harry Potter was sitting on my couch, watching me.

I made two cups, his black and mine nearly white with cream. He accepted it when I handed it to him and stared at it for a long time.

“Weasley would make fun of you incessantly for your bitter black coffee,” I murmured.

“Who are you?” Harry breathed. I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

“My name is Draco Malfoy,” I said, defeated. “We attended the same school for six years and despised each other for all of them. My father worked for the monster you killed three years ago. When the Dark Lord fell, my father went to prison, my mother killed herself, and I have spent the first three years of my five-year probation here, wandless, and aimlessly waiting.”

There was a long moment of terrible silence. Our coffees remained undrunk and I waited for him to leave or yell or blame me for everything I so rightly deserved.

“We hate each other,” Harry said finally.

“Yes.”

“When was the last time I saw you?”

“About three years ago. You testified at my trial.”

Harry’s head snapped up. His eyes were wide and glassy. “_What_?”

“It was you and you alone who got me probation. You saved me from going to jail. I’m here because of you.”

He made a noise, somewhere between a groan and a cry and his face disappeared into his hands.

“My head hurts,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

“And what did you mean?” Harry snapped, face re-emerging above his fingers. “You have no idea what it’s been like! No idea! It’s all fucked, alright? I don’t recognize my friends, the aurors can’t tell me shit because of secrecy or some other nonsense! I went to work one day and came home someone else.” He deflated only slightly. “Everyone lies. I thought you, a nice muggle… I thought you at least I could trust.”

He retreated into his hands. After a moment, I said, “Does anyone know where you are?”

“Ministry,” he replied shortly. “They won’t come for me. I’m nothing to them now.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said softly. “Did they tell you who you are? What you’ve done?”

“They told me I’m famous for killing a man,” he said bitterly.

I almost could have laughed. “Oh, no, Harry. Was Cassius simply a murderer for killing Caligula? Or Clytemnestra when she killed Agamemnon? No. You’re a saviour, Harry. Of our world and theirs.”

Harry stared at me for a long time. When I grew too uncomfortable under his gaze, I turned away and said, “I have to ask. Do you… do you know that your parents are dead?”

“It was the first thing I asked when I woke up.”

I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything at all. A moment later, Harry stood up.

“I should go,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

He marched to the door and yanked it open. The sudden onset of noise from the pouring rain reminded me that we were in the middle of nowhere England and Harry Potter once again hated me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry said, hand on the door frame, his pale face looking over his shoulder at me. “When we first met on the street- why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I was scared you’d leave,” I admitted. “You felt safe here. I didn’t want you to have to run again.”

The rain continued to pour. Harry gave no indication that he believed me and then there was a flash of lightning, and clap of thunder,

and I was alone again.


	8. Chapter Eight

I waited all week for news of his departure for surely he would leave. I had ruined the privacy of his recovery and I knew there was nothing I could do to repair that.

For days, I waited for Edith to make a comment or for Mr Cripley to spy me in the market and shake his head because he would know, without doubt, that it had been my fault.

But nothing came of it.

For two long weeks, I did not see him. I assumed that he was doing it on purpose and I felt worse because of it.

When I had nearly forgotten about it and could almost forgive myself for what I’d done to him, Harry came to me.

I was on the bed on the back porch, waves cresting against the sand, a notepad digging into my shin as I tried to come up with a good hook for my newest story. My ink pot (for old habits do indeed die hard) had spilled onto my hand and I had spent several minutes staring at it and remembering how once I could have vanished it so easily.

As I sat, still and somber, there was a tap on the screen door. The surprised jerk of my knee sent my notebook flying but still, Harry didn’t smile.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

Without asking, he unlocked the door with his wand and stepped onto the porch. He had a yellow legal pad under one arm and a brown paper bag under the other of which I had no illusions as to what it held.

“If you have time,” Harry said, “I have questions.”

I wanted to refuse. There was nothing I could tell him that wouldn’t reveal everything about myself but I suppose if anyone owed him answers it would be me.

“I’ll get us glasses,” I said at last.

Inside I took down two tumblers and added ice to both. Back on the porch, Harry was staring at the bed.

“Do you sleep out here?”

I took the bottle of whiskey from the paper bag and poured two cups.

“It’s the only place I can fall asleep. The sound of the waves keeps away the nightmares.”

I sat on the bed. Harry was staring at me again. He sat down on a chair near me, the legal pad resting on his lap. I read the first line upside down.”

“Hey, what?!” He noticed too late. I ripped the notepad away from him and read out lout. “‘_Why does Draco Malloy have such a large stick up his arse?_’ What the fuck?!”

Harry glared at me defiantly though his cheeks had turned red. “That was the first question I prepared.”

“Merlin,” I huffed. “If that’s the first one I’d hate to see what the rest of them are like.”

“Hey! I’m here in good faith!” Harry said, voice rising. “I could leave now!”

I recovered myself and leaned back more comfortably on the bed. I laughed lightly.

“What,” Harry said flatly.

“It’s comforting, I suppose,” I told him, “that no matter where we go or what we do, we’ll always still bicker incessantly.”

“I don’t find that very funny.”

“That’s because you don’t remember what our fights used to be like.”

He didn’t have a comeback for that one. I drank while he looked over his questions.

“You’re very prepared, I see,” I commented. “At Hogwarts is seemed like you only ever had half the stuff you needed and you’d have lost your own head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders.”

Harry looked up. I thought he would be angry at me for insulting him. Instead he said something that made me realize, for the first time, just how bad he was.

“What’s Hogwarts?”

When I realized he wasn’t joking, I knocked back my drink and said, “I’m sorry. It’s the school we went to. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Harry muttered, distracted. “Yes, I think I knew that.”

He launched into his questions then, barring me from accidentally reminding him of all that he’d lost again.

His questions ranged from _what is a Slytherin _to _did I go steady with someone named Cho Chang_. Mostly the answers were easy. They got harder when he started asking about horcruxes and why a man named George Weasley only had one ear and never left his house.

“Do you remember your friends?” I asked after a while. The liquor had loosened my tongue and the upsetting questions had begun to make my head hurt.

“No,” Harry said. “I called Ron ‘Rick’ for a whole week before he stopped me.”

“Why aren’t they here now? Why didn’t they come find you?”

“We-” Harry bit his lip and looked away. “We had a row, right at the end. They were fed up that I wasn’t the person they once knew and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Did they really tell you that?”

“No,” Harry said darkly. “I just knew.”

I didn’t think that Weasley or Granger would ever think that but I didn’t say anything on the matter.

“Any more questions for today?” I said, standing up and wobbling slightly.

Harry finished his drink and stood too. He shook his head no and I thought he might add something but he gathered his things and left without a word.

I watched him leave, his slow steps winding through the path until he was lost behind the rosebushes.

I took our empty cups into the kitchen and washed them. I made myself dinner, slightly drunk, and when I got into bed that night, the waves crashing comfortingly against the beach, I wondered if he would come back again.


	9. Chapter Nine

A letter arrived from the Ministry in mid-June on the leg of a rather large brown owl that nearly decapitated me as he surprised me on the walk to my front door.

I opened it on the path, too impatient to wait, and I held my breath for the news I kept waiting for.

But it was not that. After being shut for so many months, the manor required repairs of which the funds were to come from my inheritance.

I signed their stupid form and stuffed it back into the same envelope. I tied it to the bird’s leg who took off immediately, clipping my head with his overly large wing.

I clapped a hand over the side of my face. The bird flew off leaving a wide-eyed Harry Potter in her wake.

“Ow,” I said, one-eyed.

“Hello,” Harry said, emotionless.

“More questions today?” I asked, entering my home and leaving the door open behind me. “I thought you’d have sucked my dry by now.”

“Nearly,” Harry said, toeing off his shoes and closing the door. “I have a different sort of question set for today.”

“Okay,” I said, uncertain. “Beer?”

I headed for the fridge and pulled out two. Harry settled in on the settee.

“Yes, thank you,” he said softly.

I brought them over and sat opposite him, twisting off the caps.

“You’re so quiet now,” I noted, handing him his beer. “At school you were always loud, surrounded by people. I distinctly remember you shouting at several professors.”

“That’s actually what I want speak to you about.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What, how many times you yelled at Umbridge?”

“School,” he said simply. “Hogwarts. The Ministry. You told me what happened in nineteen ninety-eight- the war, the fall of Voldemort. I want to know what happened before all that, at school. Us, Draco.”

Unable to stop myself, I laughed. “For the record, there is no us, Potter. Back then, you were Potter and I was Malfoy and we were at each other’s throats for everything.”

I waited for him to interrupt me but when he didn’t, embarrassingly, I began to ramble.

“I was _desperate_ to be your friend. I was on the train when I heard you were coming to school. I wanted so badly to be Harry Potter’s best friend, to bring you home at Christmas and introduce you to my father. I wanted to show you off like a zoo animal.”

Harry was scribbling something on his ever-present notebook. He had a small smile on his face. “Bad beginnings.”

“We’d already met once before I just didn’t know it. We met at the tailor. I acted like a real dickhead.”

“That I’m not surprised about,” Harry said, smirking. He put his notebook away and leaned back into the couch getting comfortable. He took a long pull of his beer and said, “Tell me about the castle.”

I did, as best I could. I tried to tell it as someone who hadn’t grown up rich in a manor. I spoke of its halls, the passageways, the way it always made you feel safe no matter how cold or how dark. Harry’s eyes lit up when I described Quidditch and what it felt like to fly. When I got to the Quirrell fiasco of first year he seemed confused and I couldn’t stop laughing.

“I was eleven,” Harry said dumbfounded.

“Yes,” I said through good mannered guffaws.

“That’s insane! Am I mental?”

“You’re having a beer with me and don’t seem to think anything is wrong with that so I’d say yes.”

Harry drank some more. “What happened after that?”

“After Quirrell died and the Dark Lord escaped? Nothing. Life went on. I went back to the manor and you went back to your horrible life with the muggles. The most famous wizard in the modern world and you went back to live in a cupboard and yes, you heard that right. I don’t think you meant for that to come out but The Daily Prophet is very thorough.”

Harry didn’t say anything for a long while. I waited but the tension in the room was making me jumpy.

“Can I get you another drink?” I asked. Harry blinked himself out of his daze.

“No, no, thank you. I should go.”

“Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Whether a credit to his politeness or to me being on my best behaviour, Harry hesitated.

“No, I don’t think so.”

He stood and made for the front door, slipping on his coat and trainers. I remained sitting.

“One more thing,” Harry said softly, reverting back to the new quiet Potter I was slowly getting used to.

“Anything,” I said.

“At the end of this story- will I hate you more than I’m supposed to now?”

“Yes,” I said.

Harry unlocked the door. “I don’t think I believe that.”

The door opened, I could hear noise from the street, and then nothing again.

“You’re wrong,” I said out loud.

In the distance, waves continued to wash over the beach. That would never change.

Some things never can.


	10. Chapter Ten

Wednesday found me back at Amber Cottage having tea with Mr Cripley in the back garden. I enjoyed his company. His open disdain for me, although having persisted, had waned and if I didn’t know better I’d say the old man was beginning to like me.

“You’ve told him then,” Cripley growled over the rim of his tea cup. “Told him you’re the same.”

“Not quite the same, I fear,” I said. “Cut from the same cloth, I suppose, but not the same dye.”

Cripley waited. We both stared at the empty chair his wife used to occupy.

“I… don’t think he’s cross with me anymore.”

“Was he at first?”

I nodded. “I don’t know what hurt him more- that I was a wizard or that I pretended not to know him.”

“How well did you know him?”

I looked out into the wide ocean. “I am twenty-one years old and I have known Harry Potter for ten of those years.”

Cripley grunted. “You sure you hate him?”

“Yes. Or, no. I thought I did. I don’t exactly know anymore.”

“He visited me the other day, you know,” Cripley said after a bout of silence. “Stayed for tea. Sat right where you are now. He asked about you.”

I looked away. “And what did you tell him?”

“What he wanted to hear.”

“Which was?”

“That no matter how much of a sorry sack of woe-is-me fallen princeling you are- you’re still just a man, as he is, looking for answers.”

I remained turned, eyes far away from here. I could hear Cripley pouring us more tea.

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me yet,” I said.

“Don’t get used to it, lad.”

We spoke no more of Harry Potter that day. When I left, I felt better than I had in days- lighter, like my burden mattered a little bit less.

The walk home took me down the main street. I spied Peggy in the grocer and my neighbor at the pet shop. I said hello to the few people I knew.

_Would I have ever greeted muggles before I became one myself?_

The café at the end of the main street was empty, save one. He was stirring his tea with idle fingers and reading a magazine, his long hair nearly touching the pages.

Despite all the tea I’d already had, I felt like one more cup.


	11. Chapter Eleven

“What happened to Mrs Cripley?” Harry asked when I’d been settled and my own tea had arrived. “I was always too shy to ask.”

“It’s been two years now, it’s alright,” I said. “She was eighty-three. Passed in the night.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “Did you attend the funeral?”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I never considered going. I didn’t believe it was my place.”

Harry didn’t press further. He put away his magazine and finally stopped stirring his tea long enough to drink it.

“So, with my kill count up to two-” he began.

“I’m sorry, with your _what_?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth lifted. “I murdered Quirrell and discorporated Voldemort for the second time so let’s sum up and say my kill count at eleven years old is two.”

“Sure,” I said, leaning back comfortably. “Sure, we’ll go with that.”

“Did I kill anyone in second year?”

“Only a giant snake. You faced the Dark Lord again.”

“Again? So soon?”

I shrugged. Harry waited so I began to tell him what happened that school year in nineteen ninety-two- The Chamber of Secrets, the blood, Ginny Weasley. At the mention of her name, a strange look crossed Harry’s face.

“I was engaged to her.”

“You were?”

“It ended,” he said flatly, voice final. “Before the accident. I don’t know where she is now.”

“She plays for the Harpies. Quidditch,” I added when Harry looked confused.

“Oh. Yes.”

Eyes downcast, Harry didn’t look well. He looked sad and small like the world was too big and he was trying to fill it all himself.

So, I kept talking. I left out the fate of Lockhart for it struck too many chords now and hammered home the impact of what he had achieved that year.

“You saved the school,” I finished, reaching my arm across the table as if to grab his but thinking better of it and stopping. “Hogwarts remained open, the basilisk was dead, and all those petrified woke up. You did that.”

“It doesn’t feel like me,” Harry muttered.

He reached out. For one wild moment I thought he was going to hold my hand but instead he trailed his finger over my forearm where my sleeve had been pushed up. The end of the snake tattoo showed and it burned like fire where he touched it.

“What have they said about your memory?” I asked quietly, unsure if I even wanted to hear the answer.

“I wasn’t obliviated,” he said quickly, laying his chin down on his one folded arm. The other continued to explore the mark. “They know that for certain. They think it was a homemade spell that had been tampered with, something unstable. Since they don’t know what it was they don’t know how to treat it.”

“But there’s hope?”

Harry shrugged. “Sure. There’s always hope.”

He didn’t look confident. I pulled up my sleeve until the whole mark was on display.

“The man who killed your parents gave me this,” I told him. “I received it along with an awful task that I knew I couldn’t complete. I expected it to kill me but it didn’t. And then you killed him and now here we are, having tea in a nowhere corner of the world. I’d say there’s always hope.”


	12. Chapter Twelve

_Dear Mr Malfoy,_

_It has come to our attention that you have been found in the company of one Harry Potter in the town of Kettering, England. Mr Potter is on ministry medical leave and is under strict instruction to rest and recover._

_The terms of your probation state that you are NOT allowed to use magic under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE or to intervene in ANY matter of magical significance. _

_Any violation of your probation will result in an increased sentence or the permanent debarment of your magical abilities._

_Leviticus Woolf, D.M.L.E_

_Dear Mr Woolf,_

_If Harry Potter wants to fraternize with me, then he can do what he fucking well likes._

_D M_

_P.S Instead of writing rude letters, why don’t you figure out what’s wrong with his head?_

I told the story of third year on the beach.

He didn’t seem surprised to hear that his Godfather was wanted for murder nor that he was innocent all along. He laughed when I told him about Granger punching me and he prodded my arm with warm fingers where that damned Hippogriff had gored me.

“It really fucking hurt!” I insisted as Harry bent over and laughed himself stupid. “You laugh now but just you wait until you see a Hippogriff again for the first time!”

Harry was still laughing as he took off his shoes and socks and rolled up the ends of his jeans, stepping into the surf.

“What happened to Professor Lupin?” he asked, smiling brightly. “He can’t still be roaming the forest.” His face fell when he considered mine. “What, what is it?”

“Lupin died. In the final battle against the Dark Lord. Both him and his wife.”

Wordlessly, Harry ventured out further into the water. Then- “And my Godfather?”

“He died two years after you met him, when you were fifteen. My… my aunt killed him.”

“Your-” Harry stared wide-eyed at me. The ends of his trousers were getting wet from the waves but he didn’t seem to notice.

“My aunt Bellatrix was insane,” I said. “A religious zealot for the Dark Lord. Sirius Black was her cousin and she killed him anyway.”

“My Godfather was your-”

“First cousin once removed, yes.”

Harry looked down, finally noticing the water on his jeans. He looked at it as if not understanding.

I took off my shoes and socks and walked into the surf, not bothering to roll up my trousers. Harry had begun to cry.

“Lupin had a son before he died,” I said softly, “and he named you Godfather.” Tears poured silently down Harry’s face. “His name is Teddy and you used to see him often. When you’re ready, he is waiting for you.”

Harry let out a soft sob and his head fell forwards onto my chest. My heart pounded against my ribs and I didn’t know what else to do except to card a hand through his hair and hold him.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

“It’s like this,” Harry said when I asked him. “I remember what a Patronus is but not what mine looks like. I know there’s a Minister of Magic but not their name or who came before them. I know I’ve made love before but I don’t know who with or if I liked it or not.”

I snorted. “I’m sure you liked it, you cheeky sod. And do mine ears deceive me or did you just use the phrase ‘made love’?”

Harry threw a pillow at me. I threw one back.

“Careful,” Harry said. “I might have to hex you.”

“Careful. I might have to… kick you with my foot.”

Harry broke out into a fit of laughter. I took our empty cups to the kitchen to make us fresh drinks.

“Do you miss it?” Harry asked not unkindly over the back of the couch.

“Magic? No, not as much as I thought I would. The first few weeks were hard I’ll admit. But it gets easier. You forget how it was. If I had friends or more reasons to head to London that would be more of a headache I think. I’m afraid driving is not quite nearly as convenient as flying.”

“Where are your friends now? The ones from school I mean.”

My knife hovered over the lemon I was cutting. My hesitation didn’t come from fear of admitting things to Harry but rather it had been so long since I’d thought of my fellow Slytherins that I needed a moment to remember.

“Theo is too much a pureblood to speak to a disgraced one like me now. Blaise is married, to a much older woman I might add. We’ve spoken a few times since my trial. Pansy does something for a foreign ministry, lives in Cape Town I believe. I’ll have to check that one. And Greg- well, Greg hasn’t been quite right since Vincent died.”

“Oh,” Harry said softly. “How did he die?”

“He died at Hogwarts.” I met Harry’s eyes intently. “You were there. He used dark magic to set a room on fire. I escaped on the back of your broom. Vincent didn’t make it out. But I suppose we’re not there in the story just yet.”

Harry remained silent, eyes on the floor. I brought over our drinks and handed him his. He took one look at it and said, “What the flipping fuck is this?”

I smirked. “It’s a fruit cocktail, Potter. Shut up. Drink it or wear it.”

“You only call me Potter when you’re cross with me.”

“It’s still a far cry better than how we used to be, I’ll tell you that.”

Changing tactic completely, Harry said, “What did you look like back then when I knew you?”

“What do you mean? You’re seeing me now, aren’t you, it hasn’t been that long.”

Harry took a sip of his drink, made a very nice noise of approval, and said, “Humour me, please.”

“Fine,” I said. “Fine. I wasn’t very tall, though importantly still taller than you. I was very thin. Often I looked sallow, unhealthy. My father would put a lot of pressure on me. I used to- Merlin, I can’t believe I thought this looked good- I used to slick my hair back with liberal amounts of potion.”

“Oh, _God_,” Harry said.

“There was no God when it came to that hairstyle.”

Harry was positively rolling in his seat with laughter. “Did it make you look like the stick up your arse was even bigger?”

“It sure did.”

We both laughed at that one. I stirred my drink, swirling around the fruit. Harry was almost done his. I needed to catch up.

“And me?” Harry said. “What did I look like?”

“Nearly the same. Same ugly glasses, same ugly face- ouch! Watch it, no pillow throwing when there’s drinks. Your hair is just as mental as it was then. Now it’s even longer.”

“Yes,” Harry said, twirling a long strand between his fingers. “I’ve been meaning to cut it.” He looked up at me from beneath his lashes. “Will you do it?”

I stared at him. His eyes were wide open and sure. I looked at his hair, the small curl of it at the ends and the way it seemed to never behave at the back.

“Okay.”

Harry sat up straighter and waited. I hesitated, not having expected it to happen _right now_. Slowly, I fetched scissors from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen and stood behind him, suddenly unsure.

“I trust you,” Harry said.

I began at the bottom. I took slow, careful cuts, running my fingers through his hair, making sure I didn’t miss anything. I had never done this before. _Was the hair supposed to be wet? Damp? _Harry remained helpfully still and said nothing. The air was silent except for my scissors.

It was the most intimate thing I’d done with another person in three years.

“There,” I said quietly after several long minutes. I brushed stray hairs from Harry’s pale neck. “I don’t think I did too poorly.”

Harry vanished the hair from the floor with a flick of his wand. He went to the mirror at the edge of the room and admired himself. When he was done, he looked back, beaming, and said, “Let’s go out.”

“No,” I said automatically.

“Get your coat.”

“_No_.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t have a comeback. Harry threw my coat at me and left, leaving the door open.

I caught up with him a block away. He was whistling, running his hands through his new hair. He grinned at me over his shoulder and I nearly stumbled over the curb.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “The National?”

“You can’t dance at The National, stupid.”

“I resent that you called me stupid and there’s no way in fuck I’m going dancing.”

“Fine,” Harry said easily. “Have a good night, Malloy. Cheers.”

He started whistling again. Groaning, I followed him to the bar.

It was full when we arrived. The crowd dancing was old, the crowd at the bar was young. Harry stripped me of my coat and disappeared, reappearing with empty hands.

“Just how many times have you been here, Potter?”

“Drinks?” he replied with. His grin was impish.

He took my hand and dragged me to the bar. He yelled something at the pretty bartender who poured us two beers and two shots and flirted shamelessly. Harry paid and tipped well and didn’t seem to notice her advances at all.

We drank the shots and Harry sipped his beer as a chaser. I picked up mine and drank. And drank. Not to be outdone, Harry began to chug his as well.

I stared at him over the rim of my glass. The corners of his eyes were crinkled as he smiled around his glass and the lights of the bar flickered across his glasses.

Empty, I slammed my glass back down on the bar.

“Fuck,” I coughed.

My hands were shaking with something that might have been excitement or apprehension. There was something in the way he was watching me that made me feel like I’d been hexed and I was certainly going to need many more drinks before the night was over.

Harry was saying something but the music was too loud and all I could do was stare. I looked down at his lips. They formed words the words _come on_ and then I was being led out onto the dance floor, his warm hand clamped around my wrist.

It was hot under the lights, much too hot. There were bodies on all sides, moving to the music. Harry was pressed up right behind me. I could feel the ghost of his hands on my hips.

“Have you ever danced even _once_?” Harry teased, so close I could almost feel his lips on my ear. “I’m getting the impression that no, you have not.”

“I did once at the Yule Ball,” I said, good-heartedly defensive. “Though Pansy was more interested in finding a dark corner if you know what I mean.”

“Ooh, Pansy getting handsy.”

I laughed loudly but no one could hear.

The song changed, the lights flashed. We danced, the room wild and safe. Harry twirled my sixty-year-old neighbour while I held Peggy’s very drunk cousin who bought both Harry and I drinks and kept saying how much I looked like her first husband.

We finally ended up alone at a corner table with fresh drinks, both trying to catch our breath. Harry had pushed his glasses up to the top of his head and was hopefully too blind to catch me staring at him. The drinks had loosened me up and we were sitting very close together.

“Tell me about the Yule Ball,” Harry said, smiling warmly, cheeks pink. “Tell me about fourth year.”

“Admittedly,” I began conspiratorially, “it wasn’t a very good year for you.”

“You know, Malloy, I’m getting the impression that I don’t get any good years.”

“You certainly don’t.” I took a drink. Harry’s hand was resting open on the table. “We were fourteen. It was the year of the Triwizard Tournament. Senior students from three schools were to compete in a series of unbelievably dangerous tasks to win bragging rights essentially. And some gold.”

Harry looked disgusted, like the taste in his mouth had gone sour. “Who in their right mind would compete?”

I grimaced. Harry’s mouth fell open. I took a long, exaggerated pull of beer, not looking at him.

“No,” he whispered. “_No_.”

“Oh, yes,” I said matter-of-factly.

I told him the story of the restrictions and how, somehow, his name had still come out of the goblet, naming him the fourth champion and Hogwarts’s second.

Harry listened closely, caught between shock and awe. He had pulled one leg up onto his chair and was hugging it, his chin resting on his knee.

“What did you think?” he asked suddenly. “Did you think I had put my own name in?”

“I told everyone you had,” I admitted. “Another measly attempt to tarnish your reputation. I made badges for people to wear that insulted you and told people it was all just another ploy to garner more fame than you already had. But no, I knew you hadn’t. That wasn’t something you would do.”

“You were such a bully!” Harry said grinning. He punched me in the arm. “I cannot believe you!”

“I know, I know!” I cried dramatically, burying my face in my hands. “You should just leave me here.”

“Never.” He said it so naturally that I realized, for the first time, that him and I were actually friends.

“So who won? Who won the tournament?”

I raised my head, smirking. I rested my chin on one hand, tilting it to the side. Harry blinked stupidly at me.

“No,” he said flatly. “You’re fucking with me.”

“You won fair and square!” I said, then paused because no, he hadn’t. I stopped smiling. “Well, actually no. You tied with the other Hogwarts champion, a boy named Cedric Diggory. He died during the last task.”

“How?”

“No one-” I swallowed hard, “-no one believed you. You said the cup transported you and Diggory to a terrible place. You said the Dark Lord had risen again and that he killed him.”

“And no one believed me?” Harry said quietly.

“Not many, no.”

“But you believed me?”

He looked so hopeful. I thought of lying to him, or telling him only half truths, but I would never do that again. I had made a promise to myself.

“Yes.” I couldn’t look at him. “My father was there that night.”

It was silent for a long time. Dance music continued to play and it felt like a whole other lifetime when we’d been dancing to it.

I thought Harry might leave. I thought he’d claim his jacket and walk out but he didn’t. He touched my hand and gave me a small smile.

“Let’s dance.”

“Yea?” I said.

“Yea.”

So, we went back out and even though my heart was pounding, I felt lighter than I had in a long while.

We danced together this time. I recognized most of the songs. Harry didn’t but I wasn’t sure if that was the curse or if he simply didn’t listen to modern music.

We left the bar at quarter to two in the morning. It was the latest I’d ever stayed out in Kettering and the best night I’d had in a long time by a landslide.

Harry was whistling that same tune again. The roads were empty and the street lights were few and far between. His left hand was in my left and we were spinning slowly down the centre of the street.

“I’m very drunk,” I said.

“I love Kettering,” Harry moaned. He looked up at the sky instead of the ground in front of him and I tightened my grip on his hand.

“What do you like about it?”

“I like the people,” he said earnestly. “I like the ocean. I like the library where they spelled my name wrong on the card and how now I will forever be Larry Potter. I like the view from the top of the white cliffs.” He looked down at me. “I like you.”

I hummed sadly. “Not for long.”

“Why is that?”

“We still have three more years to get through. Who I am now is not who I was then. And you won’t like that Draco.”

“We all make mistakes,” Harry said as easily as if the mistakes we were talking about were inconsequential. “It’s not about fixing the mistakes you can fix that make you who you are. It’s grieving the ones you can’t that show who you really are.”

I stopped spinning. He did too. We were facing different directions but our hands were still clasped between us.

Being here, now, together, felt more significant than the ten years we’d known each other before ever could.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

I woke with the couch cushion in my mouth and instead of a blanket I was wrapped in a beach towel. In a measuring cup on the floor beside me was unmistakably a Bloody Mary. On a post-it note tagged to the side of the cup was a terrible version of my hand writing that read:

_HAIR OF THE DOG _

“Fuck,” I said out loud.

There was a groan of agreement from the other couch and I shot up in alarm.

“Jesus!” I shouted as Harry’s unruly head appeared over the couch’s armrest. “You startled me!”

“Well,” Harry said, voice scratchy with sleep, “I am the born-again saviour but I’m not him quite yet.”

I slumped back down in my beach towel and threw my arm over my eyes. “You are so going to get smited, Larry Potter.”

Harry snorted and laughed quietly. “Did we just have a sleepover?”

I groaned and turned away from him. When I caved and looked back, Harry was holding his Bloody Mary and drinking deeply.

“You’re actually drinking that?!”

Harry shrugged. “It will help with the hangover. Also, it took us over an hour to make them last night so it seems like a waste to throw them out.”

He kept drinking. Not to be outdone, I drank mine too.

“Do you have to work today?” Harry asked on his way to the kitchen. He began to make coffee.

“It’s Saturday, Potter,” I said. “No one works.”

“Sorry,” he said, opening cupboards and drawers on memory as if he’d made coffee here before which, of course, he had. “Days of the week mean nothing when you’re unemployed.”

“The newspaper is looking for a receptionist,” I said cheekily, joining him in the kitchen and taking down a random mug for me and the one Harry always used for him. “You can fetch me coffee and organize my files when I don’t want to.”

“Ha ha,” he said jokingly. The coffee began to drip and he turned around to lean on the counter. “What’s up for you today?”

“I have some work things to do,” I said, leaning against the opposite counter. The space wasn’t very large and our legs touched. “Research mainly, on a piece Edith wants me to do.”

“On what?”

“That old ship in the harbour by the white cliffs and no, it’s not a pirate ship,” I added, seeing the look on his face. “Despite what everyone thinks.”

“What is it then?” The coffee pot switched from brewing to warming.

“You’ll have to read the article,” I said coyly as Harry poured.

“Have you been to the harbour yet?” he asked as he passed me my cup.

“Thank you. And only from the top of the cliffs. I’ll be going Friday. Mr Cripley is lending me his car.”

I waited, half expecting Harry to make a comment about the old wizard but instead he beamed and said, “Can I come?”

“Sure,” I said, humouring both of us for surely he would find something better to do.

I took my coffee to the desk in the corner of the living room where I had a few books stacked beside my computer. I started it up, waiting for the dial-up internet access. Harry walked to the porch where he paused, holding his hot coffee in both hands and looking out at the sea.

“Mind if I stay a bit?” he asked. “Promise I won’t bother you.”

“You could never bother me,” I said as my way of an answer. His eyes shone as he smiled.

The internet took it’s time to connect. I flipped through the research books I’d gotten from the library where they’d at least spelled my name correctly.

Around me, Harry puttered about.

He straightened the couches we’d slept on and washed the dishes I’d left in the sink. After a while he went out to the beach and walked for a long time. He came back with two shells and a rock which he placed on the railing on the porch. He went back out again. At some point, he stripped and walked into the water wearing only his boxer shorts but he stayed in the shallow parts and I wondered if the muggles had ever bothered to get him swimming lessons.

When he came back in for the last time, he was silent on the porch and when I finally looked out, unable to stem my curiosity, he was fast asleep on the bed I usually slept on.

In the evening, there was no conversation. I made dinner for two and he stayed, sitting opposite me at a table that had only ever sat one. We spoke nothing of school or of the war or of who we used to be. We drank red wine and instead of dessert we walked on the beach and enjoyed the warm weather together.

When he left, he told me he forgave me for everything that happened so many years ago and stopped me when I tried to protest.

“We haven’t reached the end of the story yet,” I tried to tell him.

“No, we haven’t,” he said simply.

He made his exit then, whistling away into the dark. When I got into bed that night, everything smelled like him.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

On Monday morning, Harry was sitting behind the receptionist desk at the news office.

“Get fucked,” I said, the moment I saw him.

“I have your coffee ready for you, Mr Malloy,” he said in a voice that could only be described as a purr.

I rolled my eyes and headed for my desk. Harry followed me closely, his delight at the situation rolling off him in waves.

“I took what you said to heart,” he drawled. “About how there was an opening here and how much you desperately wanted to see me every day. I rang Edith yesterday.”

I sat down heavily on my desk chair and swivelled around to look at him. “You have a background in what is comparable to a muggle police officer and you-” I struggled for the words. “-and you look nothing like a receptionist.”

“That’s probably sexist,” Harry said, smirking. He sat up primly on the edge of my desk. “Would you rather I had a fitted blouse and a tight skirt?”

I almost choked. Edith appeared then and excitedly spoke of our new hire while I tried to persuade my blood pressure to lower. Harry gave the perfect impression that he was listening intently but whenever Edith would look away he would wink lewdly at me. When Edith finally left, I asked him if he was going to take any of this seriously.

“Of course,” he said earnestly. Then- “Would you prefer I wore heels too? I have a pair at home.”

He sauntered off. I drank the coffee he’d left on my desk at top speed, scorching the entirety of my mouth.

Despite his initial impression, Harry surprisingly did work hard at his new position. He ordered supplies (adding in items we did not need but were greatly enjoyed), called sponsors (spent hours on the phone with whichever representative and somehow always got an invite to a retirement party or perhaps a company barbecue), and was always ready with a brew whenever we needed it (I could never make it taste as good as he did). He checked out books from the library for Mary and helped Peggy connect to the internet when she had trouble which was almost hourly. The ladies loved his help and I suppose I did too but I alone could remember the job he’d had before this one.

“I like the work,” he said late Wednesday when I told him as much. “The ministry has benched me indefinitely so I might as well find something in the meantime that makes me happy.”

At the time, I’d simply looked at him weirdly and clapped him on the shoulder like friends do. Inside I knew the severity of what he meant.

On Friday, he brought an extra bag to the office that was full to the point of bursting.

“What the hell have you got there, Potter?” I asked, sipping the coffee he had made for me. “Severed heads?”

“Nope!” he said easily. “The heads are already in your desk drawers. There are supplies for tonight.”

I glanced wearily at my desk and said, distracted, “What for? What’s tonight?”

“The ship, you idiot,” he said, laughing. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you? Did _you_ forget?”

Momentarily stunned by his enthusiasm, I stammered a no and spent the rest of the day wondering how I’d gotten myself into this mess.

We left together at four and made our way to Mr Cripley’s who was even grumpier than usual. He did little more than throw the keys at me and I was surprised he made no comment about a failure of a wizard like me making nice with the boy saviour.

In the car, I spent an embarrassingly long time adjusting the mirrors and my seat position while Harry smirked from the passenger seat and mimed putting on many more seatbelts than the one he already had on.

“I can’t believe you’re a wizard who knows how to drive,” he said smugly.

“I can’t believe you’re an idiot with such a dumb face,” I grumbled, my knuckles white around the steering wheel.

He guffawed loudly and theatrically braced himself against the dashboard as I backed out of Mr Cripley’s space.

The drive to the harbour wasn’t long. Harry kept changing the radio station because he couldn’t find something he liked and he had the attention span of an infant. We arrived at the harbour some forty minutes later and Harry immediately flung himself out of the car before I’d even parked.

“Oh, sweet, sweet earth!” he shouted, arms raised to the sky. “Never have I loved you more or felt as safe!”

I threw his bag of mystery supplies at his head and I would have felt remorse when he crashed to the ground if he hadn’t burst out laughing.

“This is a work trip,” I scolded, trying to sound severe.

Harry rolled to his feet and put on what I assumed to be an impression of my voice.

“Yes, Potter, this is serious. This is super important for the Kettering Citizen and if I don’t get it right, the stick up my arse is going to break and I will have severe internal bleeding-”

I tried to smack him but he was too quick and danced away. We walked to the edge of the cliff- me glaring and him grinning, poised to run if I lashed out again.

We stopped at the short fence that ran the length of the clifftop. The harbour amplified the sound of the waves and we could hear it as clearly as if we already down there. In the distance, two reefer ships hung frozen on the horizon.

“Wow,” Harry said. “This is nice.”

“The view or my company?”

“The view, certainly.”

I wasn’t going to hit him again but he danced away from me anyway.

We made our way to the path on the side that was skinny and steep. Harry’s bag of supplies swung from his hand as we started down and he played coy when I asked what was in there. We both shed our jackets before long and I even I undid the top button of my shirt. Harry appeared ready to make a comment about my penchant for long-sleeve collared shirts but in the end, he bit it back and said nothing.

Arriving at sea level, the eighteenth-century ship was roped off, decorated with signs warning danger and the prosecution of trespassers. Harry looked disappointed but I taunted his Gryffindor bravery and ducked under the ropes.

The ship rocked unsteadily under me, testing my own bravado, and Harry scrambled on after me.

“What happens if the police arrive to arrest us?” Harry said.

“Harry, just because I’m a muggle now doesn’t mean you are.”

“Oh, right.” He’d blushed a wonderful shade of red and I looked away grinning.

We walked slowly and carefully across the deck. The three-hundred-year-old wood creaked and groaned beneath our feet. As we walked I recounted all the information I’d researched that I could remember.

“No one remembers its real name,” I narrated, stepping over the fallen foremast. “It’s remembered as _The Armitage_, the name of its first and only captain. Thirty-two meters long. It could hold eighty passengers plus crew and two-hundred tons of cargo.”

“Which side is port again?” Harry asked, leaning over one railing and looking down at the crashing waves below.

“Left. Port has four letters and so does left. Right is starboard.”

Harry moved to the bow and craned his neck over the side to see the wooden woman erected at the front.

“It’s called a figurehead. They were often shaped as beautiful women but they really could be anything. They usually symbolised the name of the ship.”

“There’s a bird’s nest on the back of her head,” Harry said.

“Yes, well, perhaps Armitage means bird in Danish.”

Harry snorted. Together we walked the length of the ship, me spouting facts at random and although apprehensive, Harry still followed me down into the ship’s hold.

“Do you think we’ll see ghosts?” Harry whispered.

“Most definitely,” I said, aiming for sarcasm,

“Really?” Harry’s voice was caught between awe and fear.

“Potter, you’ve seen ghosts before. Hogwarts is full of them; I’ve told you that before.”

“Right, yes.”

Harry dropped his bag to the floor and looked around. I moved closer to the stern where the captain’s quarters were. After several minutes, Harry joined me.

“What happened to the ship?”

“It ran aground,” I answered easily. “It spent nearly three decades at sea but all things must end someday I suppose. The sea level in the harbour has long since dropped and since then the ship has simply rested here.”

Harry tilted his head to the side and watched me curiously. Uncomfortably under his gaze, I began to speak.

“Wiltshire, where I’m from, is about as far from the ocean as could be. My father never brought me to the sea. I never learned how to swim. When I moved to Kettering, all I could see was water. The ocean stretches forever, the deepest, darkest most mysterious part of our world and I couldn’t resist it.

“I felt trapped for so many long years. Trapped at Hogwarts with friends who didn’t truly know me, trapped in a home too big to fill with parents who saw an heir instead of a son. Hearing the ministry decide my punishment was a death sentence I thought. The first night here, at the edge of ocean, I cried. For the first time, I wasn’t trapped. If I could I would take a ship like this one to the middle of the sea where no one would find me and I could no longer see land and I would, I think, finally find peace.”

I turned. Harry had moved. He was right beside me and as I turned he turned to meet me. His hand slid over my neck, his thumb trailing over my jaw, and he kissed me.

All rational thought evaded me. The years of torment, the years of jealousy or hatred faded away. That Harry and especially that Draco had perished and all that was left behind were

_two men, searching for answers._

My back hit a table, the legs skidding loudly over the floor. Both of Harry’s hands were now on my jaw. Mine were on his waist.

Harry kissed firmly, confidently.

I kissed desperately.

I kissed him like I was trying to suck out every ounce of love and emotion as I could to fill up the hole that had only grown bigger with age. My hands went under his shirt. His tongue licked into my mouth.

Under us, the table skidded again. Harry lifted me by the back of my thighs and sat me down on top. I opened my legs and he stepped in between them. His tongue was hot and heavy in my mouth and all I could smell was _him_.

With nimble fingers, he untucked my shirt, his knuckles brushing over the front of my trousers. His warm hand travelled up over my stomach.

He froze before I did.

He pulled back. His cheeks were flush and his pupils were blown. He was looking down. Like watching a tragic accident you couldn’t look away from, he pulled up the bottom of my shirt.

His hand flew to his mouth. “Oh, _God_. Oh, God, Draco- what did they do to you?”

My one hand latched on to his hip. I tried to pull him back.

“It was a long time ago,” I whispered.

He looked up at me. His face changed from fear to something much darker.

“Who did this to you.” From the way he said it, he already knew.

I didn’t answer. Harry took a step away from me and I slipped off the table to remain close to him.

“You promised you would never lie to me,” he said, his voice catching at the end. His lip was trembling.

“It was an accident,” I whispered.

I reached out. I wanted to touch him, hold him, make sure he didn’t leave me.

But I was too late.

Harry gripped hard at his hair and pulled, his face twisting in pain. Tears welled and fell. He could no longer look at me.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Harry, please, it’s-”

I made the error of reaching out again. He jerked away as if burned, wet eyes ablaze.

“No!” he shouted. “I don’t remember! I DON’T REMEMBER.”

He left the room, an oil lamp smashing as his magic lashed out wildly. I remained, shocked into place. For several terrible moments, the other room was filled with horrible crashes as Harry ripped his way through it. By the time my feet brought myself to the doorway, the room was trashed and Harry was gone.

Our coats lay abandoned near the door but I left them there. On the floor was Harry’s bag that I’d never discovered what it held. I looked in. There was food and a bottle of wine and I could see a blanket folded carefully at the bottom.

I left it all. I ran up to the deck, calling his name. He was already halfway up the hill.

The ship creaked as I ran to the edge, jumping over the rail and crashing hard onto my knees in the dirt.

“FOR FUCKS SAKE, STOP!” I yelled up at him. My own temper flared.

He didn’t stop. I thundered after him, furious, my hands balled tight into fists. He was fast but I was faster. When I reached flat land, he was halfway to the car.

“Jesus fuck, Potter, will you just fucking listen to me?!”

“NO!” he yelled, whirling around. “YOU DON’T GET IT!”

“Then help me to understand!”

I reached him, grabbing his shoulders. He shook me off. I tried to touch him again but he jerked back and shoved me. I shoved him back. He punched me in the jaw.

I went down hard, palms scraping over the rough ground. I could taste blood in my mouth.

“IS THIS WHAT WE WERE LIKE?!” Harry screamed at me. “BACK IN SCHOOL?! IS THIS THE REAL ME AND YOU?!”

He turned his back on me. I jumped to my feet and took him down from behind. We sprawled on the grass, tangled and furious. Harry kicked me in the ribs; I got him in the temple with my elbow.

“STOP!” I screamed. “JUST STOP. THIS ISN’T YOU.”

“I DON’T KNOW THAT!” I DON’T REMEMBER! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE!”

Harry was breathing hard, his face wet with tears. He looked down at my chest.

“Show me,” he growled.

“No.”

“_Show me!_”

He lunged for me. I moved out of the way and punched him square in the face. His glasses disappeared into the grass.

“Will you just listen to me!” I begged. “You lost your memories and I can’t even imagine what that’s like but fighting me isn’t going to solve anything so PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER.”

He pulled out his wand. I put my hands up uselessly but Harry only summoned his glasses.

“I’m apparating back,” he spat at me.

“No, you’re not.”

Uncertainty crossed his face. “What?”

“If you do I will never speak to you again.”

I wiped blood from my mouth and climbed into the driver’s seat. After a long minute, Harry got in after me.

The drive back was silent. The sunset faded to night and it was dark by the time we reached town. I drove past the street Harry was staying on and he didn’t say a word. When we parked at my house he was out before the car had stopped moving. Instead of going inside, he followed the side path that led to the beach.

I parked and followed him, my hands balled into fists, ready for another fight. When the beach came into view, Harry was striding right for the ocean.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I stopped several yards away from him.

“I’m going to walk into the ocean! And you can’t swim so good luck stopping me!”

“That’s really great and everything but could you stop being an idiot for half a second so I can explain?”

Harry stopped and turned but didn’t come any closer. I walked to him instead.

“I told you I wouldn’t lie and I won’t start now.”

Harry’s eyes were black and dead when he said, “I gored you.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Horrible pain crossed his face and once more he turned his back on me. My anger flared like fanned flame. 

“Stop fucking doing that! Talk to me, Harry!”

I wrenched his shoulder back, forcing him to look at me. He stumbled but regained his wits fast, two-handing me in the chest. I fell to the sand but pulled him down with me. He landed hard on top, his breath knocked out of him. I rolled him off me and straddled him in one quick motion. He was hard, I could feel him.

“Will you just listen to me?!” I said, furious, pleading. Harry shut his mouth and didn’t try to throw me off.

“We haven’t even gotten to sixth year yet,” I said sharply, desperate for him to understand for if he didn’t now he never would. “I won’t skip ahead but what you need to know is that I was lost cause that year. I was fucked, alright? You found me in a bathroom and I was in a bad way, Harry, the worst way. We dueled. You didn’t know what the spell you used would do. After it happened you called for help and it saved my life. We never spoke of it again until now. Okay? That’s the end of it.”

His breathing was still rough and the crease between his eyebrows hadn’t faded but he wasn’t yelling and he hadn’t hit me again.

“Why are you _so _angry?” I asked quietly. “What is it about this that’s hurt you so much?”

“You can never imagine, you can never know,” Harry snapped. “What these past few months have been like… it’s _torture_. It’s torture not to know your friends’ names or your family or at the back of your mind knowing that your new friend was your enemy for _seven _years. The pain is endless, Draco. It’s endless and it’s unrelenting.”

I touched the side of his face. He leaned into my hand.

“In school,” he said, “did we ever do this?”

“No,” I said.

“Did you want to?”

I didn’t answer right away. Harry leaned up on his elbows, his face inches from mine.

“I told you before, Potter,” I murmured. “I wanted you beside me from the moment I heard your name. I wanted you in every way someone could want another person.”

I pulled my hand back and rolled off him. We sat side by side looking out at the ocean as a sky full of stars shone down on us.

“Show me,” he said quietly after several full moments.

“No.”

“Please, Draco. Please. I have to see.”

I hesitated then, sitting up on my knees, slowly unbuttoned my shirt. Although being four years old now, the scars looked as fresh as they had on that first day. Some were red, others were white. Most were thick with scar tissue and rough when touched.

When I finally found the courage to look at Harry’s face, his eyes told me everything.

“Don’t you dare close up on me again,” I warned. “You hear me? It was an accident and I-”

“Deserved it?” Harry interrupted, voice rising again. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Not this bullshit again!” I shouted, wary of the neighbours but not curbing my voice. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Harry made as if to leave. “I should go,” he said predictably.

He stood up. I swore loudly, neighbours be damned, and followed him as he walked away.

“We are not done talking! Get in the fucking house, Harry! Are you listening to me?!”

“Leave me alone!” he snarled.

We reached my house. He tried to go up the path to the street but I grabbed his shirt and roughly dragged him inside. He swore and tried to fight me but his strength was waning. I threw him into the porch and he rounded on me, eyes blazing and cheeks red with anger.

“We’ve both made mistakes,” I said fiercely, “and we can’t change the past no matter how much we may want to. You lost everything but fighting me won’t help you so you can either fuck me or leave and never come back, it’s up to you.”

There was silence. My shirt was still open and Harry had a rip in his jeans and a cut on his cheek. I must have looked worse.

Harry broke first.

He moved fast towards me and I met him halfway. He caught my face in his hands, kissing me hard on the mouth and making quick work of my shirt. I pulled his t-shirt over his head and attached my lips to the warm curve of his neck. Little noises fell from Harry’s lips. He went from palming me through my jeans to sticking his whole hand down my trousers and my entire body felt like it was on fire. Harry’s back hit the cottage wall and he groaned, his free hand tangling in my hair.

“You can have me,” Harry breathed, his body shaking under mine. “You wanted me for so long. You can have me. _I’m yours_.”

I kissed him hard on the mouth and sunk to my knees.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Harry didn’t sleep over.

He dressed in the dark and left, leaving behind an air of what could have been. My hand groped uselessly at the empty side of the bed.

When Saturday dawned, bright and clear, I didn’t get out of bed. I slept restlessly for most of the day, rising in the evening to eat a piece of toast and to fetch my notes from the car.

Sunday morning I showered and dressed in fresh clothes. I climbed back into bed and spent several hours writing. It was frustrating work as I couldn’t get the words to fit right and my imagination kept getting the better of me.

It was past noon when he came.

He didn’t knock, didn’t ask to come in. He took off his shoes by the porch door and crawled into bed, his back to me. I put aside my notebook and waited. He took off his glasses and settled in deeper into the bed.

“Tell me about fifth year.”

I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me. I lay down more comfortably, not quite touching him, and spoke to the ceiling.

“After you told the world the Dark Lord was back, the ministry tried to discredit you. They didn’t believe you and they didn’t want mass panic or the public to lose their faith in the ministry’s ability to keep them safe. They brought Umbridge to Hogwarts.”

I described her vile face and the garish pink she always wore. I admitted that despite being on her side I too was frustrated with the lack of defence training.

“It was boring,” I told him. “All we did was read textbooks and bemoan her sour moods after you yelled at her.”

I turned my head. Harry was still looking away.

“Do you still have the scars on your hand? That was detention with Dolores. She’d make you write lines with your own blood.”

The blankets shifted as Harry slid his hand up. His breath faltered for a moment.

“I never noticed,” he said quietly.

“She did it to a lot of students, many Gryffindors. She did it to children too.”

“What a horrid woman.”

“Yes, she was. Still is, I suppose. But you and your lot outsmarted her. You formed your own defence army, practiced magic at night. You had a funny name for your group but I can’t remember it now. You taught them, Harry.”

He finally looked around, his hair a wild mess and his eyes wide. “Me?” he said, alarmed.

I could have laughed. “Of course you- who else? By fifteen you’d already fought the Dark Lord three times. Four if you count when you were a baby.”

“Wow,” he said softly. “How- how did my Godfather die?”

“There was a prophecy made, about you and the Dark Lord. You and your idiot friends went to the Ministry to retrieve the prophecy before his side got it. Your side showed up, the Order I mean. There was a fight.”

“Was your father there?”

“Yes, he was there.”

“And what happened to the prophecy?”

“It smashed. I don’t know what it said.”

Harry rolled back away from me. “Sounds like a bloody awful year.”

“It was. The ending was alright. The Ministry was forced to believe the Dark Lord was back. Made the papers. Everyone believed you again.”

Harry was quiet for a long while. I tried to imagine what he could have been thinking but he’d heard too much in too little time for me to guess.

“How are you feeling?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I wished he would turn to look at me again.

“I’ve been getting headaches,” he said lowly, voice muffled by the bed. “Bad ones. Migraines.”

“Do you think it has to do with the spell? Or something else.”

“The spell. I think. I don’t know. I hope it’s my head trying to push out whatever is blocking my memories. It’s either that or… or the spell is slowly killing me.”

I didn’t know what to say back. There were no words I could tell him that would make any of this better.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for getting angry and I’m sorry for everything I did to you in school. I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

Outside, I could hear voices and a dog barking. Someone, a family maybe, was walking the beach.

I gazed sideways at Harry. I tried to picture something different, something different for us. What if we were two people? Just two people? Men who had never met, running from everything, looking for something. What if we’d met here for the first time? We could have lived here together. We could have been happy. We could have woken up every morning together on this bed and that would be the only history and the only future we’d ever know.

But that was not our story.

“I leave for London in a week,” Harry whispered.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Edith called me into her office at half two the following Friday, my article on the ship spread out in front of her.

“Yes, boss?”

“Care to explain this to me?”

I didn’t understand. I’d finished the article in a day, Harry Potter asleep next to me, and had barely read it over.

“That bad?” I grimaced.

“No,” she said. “Goodness no. I’m disappointed that you work here, in such a small town. I’m sorry that more people won’t get to read this.”

It was an article on a ship. I didn’t understand and told her as much.

“No,” she said, smiling so warmly I felt like a child again getting praise from the type of mother I’d never had. “How you spoke of the sea, the freedom of what we’re all searching for. This was beautiful, Draco.”

Unable to process praise, I looked down at the floor, embarrassed. Edith rose to her feet and came around the desk. She took my face in her hands and lifted it up.

“He was the most short-lived receptionist we’ve ever had,” she said softly, “but he was the best.”

My eyes welled up. She pulled me into her arms and although I’ve never been much for touching, I clung to the back of her shirt like I would never release her.

“He meant a lot to you,” she said, assured.

I pulled back, trying to get a hold of myself. “Yes.”

“You knew him from before, didn’t you.”

“Ten long years,” I said with a small, watery smile.

She touched my cheek. “When does he leave?”

“Tomorrow.” My voice caught at the end.

“It sure has been one wonderful summer.”

“Yes,” I said, trying and failing to smile. “It really has.”

Harry was on the beach when I arrived home. He was turning shells in his hands, looking for the best one. Then he’d pause and stare at the ocean, still as a statue, before resuming his search.

I filled up the kettle but changed my mind as I reached for mugs. I poured myself a glass of whiskey instead. Night was beginning to fall faster every day so I turned off the house’s lights to enjoy the sunset and went out onto the porch.

I read for a while, not getting very far as I spent most of the time watching him. I wanted to go to him, more than anything. To me, however, it seemed that if we spoke he’d be one step closer to leaving, one step closer to healing, and I would never see him again, not as he was now.

When night had fully fallen and Harry had abandoned his search in favour of sitting on the sand, I made two cups of tea and finally joined him.

He accepted the tea silently, his eyes meeting mine with purpose.

This was it. This was the last time we would speak, the last tea we’d share, the last time a Malfoy and a Potter would feel anything for each other except hate.

I felt like crying. I felt like running. I felt like asking him to Obliviate me so I could have things return to the way they had been before he came to Kettering.

“It’s a nice night,” Harry said.

My heart clenched. It was our last night and we didn’t know how to fill it.

“When do you leave?”

Harry looked down at his cup, the same one he always used. “Early.”

“To the Ministry?”

He shook his head. “Ron’s first, then St. Mungo’s. They… they need someone to take me and pick me up after- after it’s done.”

“Three months,” I said thickly. “It’s been three months but it doesn’t feel that way.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not with you.”

I looked away, out at the wide ocean. I wished for a ship to appear, one that could take us far away from here.

“After all this time, is there anything you do remember? Dreams? Flashes that remind you of things?”

Harry shrugged lightly. He looked so small. “Sometimes, but they don’t make sense to me. Sometimes I dream of the same ginger cat and squashy armchairs. Other times I’ll see a clock with long hands, too many of them, and suddenly feel at home and I can’t understand why.”

He looked over sharply at me, eyes wide and suddenly afraid.

“Whatever happens tomorrow,” he said firmly. “Whether it works or it doesn’t. I’ll… I’ll come back. I’ll come back for you.”

“Don’t,” I whispered. “Please. Whatever happens, don’t come back. Please. Don’t come back.”

I rubbed viciously at my eyes. I could feel Harry looking at me, could feel his hurt and confusion. I placed my empty cup to the side and brought my knees up to my chest, hugging them tightly.

“Why?” Harry said, voice small.

“What we have now, us, here in this place, we can never have again. Your world is in London with Wea- with Ron and Hermione, working as an auror, helping people, saving them. My world is here. All my regrets mean nothing here. I’m fresh, I’m brand new. That’s not how it has to be for you.”

“If it works-,” he started.

“Harry,” I said softly. “If it works, there’s a chance you won’t remember any of this. You’ll get your old memories back and all these will be… dreams. Instead of ginger cats and armchairs it will be seashells and haircuts in the dark.”

My eyes began to sting. Harry was quiet as the dead beside me.

“And if you do remember this,” I soldiered on, less wondering now and more self-inflicted pain, “and everything from before, all this won’t be worth it to you. You’ll remember the fights, the words, the manor. You’ll remember what happened in the Room of Requirement and how much of a coward I was. This Draco, the one you know now, won’t be enough for you to forget who I was.”

“And if it doesn’t work? If nothing changes?”

“Like I said before. That world is where you belong, not here.”

We gazed out at the ocean together in silence, my heart breaking in my chest. Tears were falling noiselessly down my cheeks and I was too afraid to look at him.

“I’ve already had you too long to myself,” I whispered.

“You haven’t had me nearly long enough.”

He stood. I expected him to leave. I watched, full to the brim of every emotion, as Harry took off his clothes and walked naked into the ocean.

It must have been cold but he didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate. He walked until he was chest deep and waited.

I undressed slowly, discarding my clothes beside his. The water was cold but I barely noticed it. I went to him, aware I still didn’t know how to swim but unafraid. We kissed. His body was so warm under mine.

He went in deeper, trying to teach me how to stay afloat. I held on to him, his eyes sparkling under the bright moon. Before long we were laughing, enjoying ourselves like this wasn’t our last night together or maybe despite it.

We got out of the water, grinning and pliant, and gathered our clothes. We walked naked back to my house, our hands clasped and swinging between us.

Inside we did little more than throw our clothes on the floor before our hands were on each other. His body was salty under my tongue, the water from his hair rolling down his back. I took his earlobe in between my teeth, the scarred one, and held onto a glimmer of hope that if we did meet again, I would ask him about it.

He didn’t speak a word of my scars this time. He kissed every one until my whole body was on fire and I couldn’t remember his name or mine or why my heart felt so heavy.

We spent our last night together as lovers, as friends, as two men so different from how we used to be. In the morning he would leave and I would not and although the town would go back to the way it had been before, I could never forget the summer I spent with Harry Potter.

_END_


	18. Post Script

Edith left Kettering to a going away party of balloons, treacle tart (she hated cake), and a sobbing Mary who was already three sherrys deep.

It had been a hard decision for Edith to leave the only place she’d ever known but her daughter in Edinburgh had given birth to twins and that pretty much settled it.

I was made editor. Mary said she was too old and Peggy had grandchildren of her own. I was young and single and the only one who could ‘bring the paper properly into the twenty-first century’.

We took Edith to the train station in Peggy’s tiny Volvo, Edith and I cramped together in the back. Snow fell lightly onto the road and Peggy’s windscreen wipers moved slowly, clearing away the first snowfall of December. Edith held my hand and smiled motherly at me. She knew where my thoughts were.

She had always been good at that.

“Here we are, Eddie,” Peggy said into the quiet car. We’d arrived at the station.

I carried the bags while Peggy tried to figure out where we needed to go. When we finally found the right platform, Mary started to sob and it was the party all over again.

Edith doled out hugs and kind words. When it was my turn she told me to take care of her newspaper.

“I will,” I promised.

“It’s almost the holidays. Will you spend time with family?”

“Yes,” I lied.

I had not told them that my father had died in October.

“Good,” she said. “Good. You need a new… receptionist.”

I laughed. The old bird really did know me.

“You take care, Edith.”

“You better be taking your own advice, Draco. You’re the kindest boy I’ve ever met.”

We hugged one last time and then she was gone. Mary continued to wail.

The ride back was quiet and uneventful. Mary was in a right state in the passenger seat and Peggy chose a radio station that was both loud and cheery.

I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes.

Autumn had not been the same, I had not been the same. My routine remained but my mind was so far away it was like watching my own life through a lens.

Years of pain were inconsequential now to one perfect summer. I had asked him to stay away and he had but I knew now that if I could take it all back, all that I’d said to him that last night, I would.

I wanted him, in any way I could have him- my Harry, the Harry before, a new Harry. It didn’t matter. In every scenario in my head, I fall for him again and what’s more, he falls for me too.

It never got easier, not a week later, not three months. He was everywhere. His cup was in the cupboard, untouched since he’d last used it. The shells he’d collected were still lined up in a neat row on the porch. Even looking at the ocean now reminded me of the freedom I’d been so close to having, the wide life I’d only been able to taste. He was in my blood, my veins, in every piece of writing I did.

Weekly I visited Mr Cripley for the Prophet and weekly there was no news and I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

There was an engagement announcement for Ginevra Weasley and some Armenian bloke. Hogwarts hired a new History of Magic professor after an accidental séance had banished Professor Binns.

The world kept turning and I was at a standstill, right back where I started.

“Draco, we’re here, love.”

I opened my eyes, fumbling an unnecessary apology. The ladies said their goodbyes. I could see the sadness in their eyes and I knew it wasn’t just about Edith’s departure.

_Silly, _I thought as I trudged up the path to my house. _I’m being an idiot_.

I went inside with a purpose, locking the door behind me and throwing off my coat. I filled up the kettle and turned on the hob. I went to the cupboard to use his cup for I refused to fear it anymore. I reached up and my arm hung in midair.

It was missing.

I whipped around. There was an extra pair of shoes by the door, an unfamiliar coat on the rack. I stumbled over my own feet as I approached the porch I’d closed for winter.

Sitting in about a hundred blankets with a warm cup of tea in his hands was Harry. He looked up at me and smiled and every thought in my head vanished except for him, here, now, in my house.

“We never finished our story.”

“Harry?” I said stupidly. I could feel my own mouth beginning to curve upwards.

“Your Harry,” he said. “It didn’t work. They have more things they want to try but for now…”

I stepped further onto the porch. It must have been freezing but I couldn’t tell.

“I tried to go back to work,” he said. “It didn’t make me happy. I wanted to come back right away but I also wanted to respect what you’d asked of me.”

“I was an idiot.”

Harry grinned. “I know. That’s what Hermione said.”

“You told them?”

“Yea, I did. They knew there had to be a reason why I stayed in Kettering for so long and why I was so cut up about leaving it.”

I stared at him dumbly. I must have looked like a proper moron. Harry looked about ready to laugh.

“I have something for you,” he said.

He disentangled himself from the mound of blankets and pulled out his wand.

“Are you going to hex me?” I laughed, slowly starting to come back to myself.

“Oops, wrong one.”

He searched his other pocket and pulled out another wand. I recognized it instantly.

“That’s mine.”

“Yes, it is.” He held it out. “I told the Ministry that if I’m staying here a while I might need back up, just in case.”

I took the wand. Blue sparks shot out of the end.

“You’re still on probation though so no funny business. And I couldn’t get your house back or your money. Sorry.”

“I don’t want it,” I said automatically.

“I didn’t think you would.”

We grinned at each other.

“The place I stayed at before,” Harry said, taking a step closer to me, “seems to be full up for the holidays.”

“I think I can find you somewhere to stay,” I said beaming. He was so close now I could smell him.

“I always meant to ask, what happened to your ear?” I said.

“Muggle bar fight,” Harry answered. “Who are _The Weird Sisters_?”

“A wizard hair metal band that everyone seems to love for some reason. I think they’re ghastly.”

Harry was right up in front of me now. “We have a lot of stories still to tell.”

We embraced. The icy waves crashed against the beach as they always had and always would. Some things can’t change.

Some, for the better, can.


End file.
